CONSERVE WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

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If your home was built before 1950, chances are attic and underfloor insulation were completely ignored. Both are easy to install on your own. You'll want a minimum of R-11 under floors and R-30 in the attic.

The newest insulation wrinkle uses a thin aluminum film to stop radiant heat flow (the heat flow through space). It's different from traditional insulation, which slows conduction (the heat flow through an object), and it has a more specific application. A radiant barrier works best when heat is trying to transfer downward, from the underside of your roof into your attic, for example. The Florida Solar Energy Center reports that installing a radiant barrier on the underside of the roof will reduce home cooling costs by 10% to 20%. Radiant barriers are not for everyone; the technology is most effective in regions where summer cooling is the biggest energy expense. Where winter heating is more of an issue, insulation and weatherization (plugging air leaks) will give you a 25% to 40% reduction in heating and cooling costs every year.

One of the most imposing obstacles to living more efficiently is the fact that we are surrounded by utility power. Designing off the power grid means very quickly learning to squeeze the maximum work out of every single watt. There's no better motivation for conservation efforts than living without resource abundance. On the grid, we tend to ignore our consumption patterns: with auto-deduct payment plans, you never even have to open the utility bill. If we're going to make that collective leap from intellectualizing about energy issues to taking action, we need to open the bill, and start changing the future — one light bulb at a time.

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